


How Many Roads

by hopelesspapaya



Series: Blowin' in the Wind [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Gen, Here4u gets like one magazine mention and one line of dialogue about them in-game, Minor Character(s), Post-Canon, does that count as minor character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 07:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15408156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopelesspapaya/pseuds/hopelesspapaya
Summary: Not everyone can be brave. In the aftermath of everything, a puppet digs himself out of the rubble and tries to determine whether or not he was ever real.





	How Many Roads

Sometimes, in the early morning, an android could exhale and see its breath freeze just the same as any human. It often got cold enough to do so during Detroit winters, and the streets would be packed shoulder-to-shoulder with man and machine alike puffing away like little steam engines.

The roads were mostly empty now.

One man was walking down a deserted sidewalk in Greektown, the first to sketch a path through the new snow that day. His head was bowed and his back was hunched, like he didn’t want to be seen by the nobody surrounding him.

Nobody in the restaurants. Nobody in the shops. Nobody in the hotels.

Nothing.

But there was something—around the corner sat a squat little ethnic grocery store with the lights still on. Surrounded by trendiness and new money, it seemed like it had been plucked out of time and misplaced by the hand of some careless god.

The man quickened his steps and pushed open the door, eager to be out of the cold and the gnawing sense of blankness outside. A bell jingled. He scuffed his dress shoes on the ratty doormat, brushed the frost off his too-light suit jacket, and adjusted his trilby. The LED at his temple flickered.

“Well what do you know, a customer. You’re the first I’ve seen in a couple days.” An older Eastern European man was relaxing in a chair behind the counter, sandaled feet up against the till and beer in hand. He spread his arms wide. “Welcome to my humble abode! I hope, of course, you’re going to purchase something, but some conversation would do just as well.” He took a sip of his beer and pointed a beat-up remote at an old TV set in the corner. It had been tuned to KNC, which was broadcasting commentary on yet another android rights peace talk, and now the volume lowered a little.

The young man quirked a self-deprecating smile and said, “Well, I don’t have any money, and I’m not much for conversation, either. I’m sorry about that.”

“Ah, kids these days.” The shopkeep gestured at an ancient folding chair next to him. “Come over here, if you aren’t going to buy anything. I’m going to guess you have no better place to be; keep an old man company in exchange for freeloading on the heating bill, ah?”

The newcomer hesitated, fiddling with the ends of his slim black tie, before nodding slowly and stepping further into the store. His shoes clacked on the vinyl tile. “That’s the spirit!” the old man grinned, and heartily slapped the young man’s back as he gingerly perched on the rusty seat.

“I am Yiorgos.” The way the old shopkeep said it, he might have been an Olympic god. “Most people get that wrong, though, so you may call me George, if you must.”

“I think I can manage. It’s nice to meet you, Yiorgos.”

“Oh, and a perfect accent, too! You’re a quick study.” The old man took a moment to take his feet off the counter and adjusted how he sat. “Come on, then, I’ve told you mine. What’s yours, son?”

“Jax.”

“ _Jax._ Well, I’ve heard worse.” Yiorgos crossed his arms and made a theatrically considering face, then laughed at the young man’s serious frown. “Relax! I’m just an old guy giving you shit. It’s the responsibility of the elderly to make fun of the young, you know.”

The shopkeep reached over and opened the rattling mini-fridge behind him. “Want something to drink, Jax?”

“I’m alright, thanks.”

“You sure? I’ve got some cold coffee here—could warm that up for you. Ah, also some of my wife’s spanakopita.” Yiorgos leveled a skeptical look the stiff young man. “To be honest, you look like you need it.”

“You’re a kind man, Yiorgos, but I really don’t. You know.” The man haltingly raised a hand and tapped two fingers against the LED half-hidden under the brim of his hat. “That, and all that.”

“Ahh, I see.” The old man sat back in his chair and put his hands in his lap. “That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“You’re too blue! I was wondering why a boy like you looked more frozen than anybody had the right to be.” Yiorgos leaned forward and pointed. “I thought I was dreaming, but you have ice stuck to your neck. It hasn’t melted yet, by the way.”

“Oh.” Jax clumsily brought a sleeve up and tried to brush the spot away, but it was frozen into the skin. Yiorgos put a hand on the android’s arm and shook his head.

“You might as well leave it. It’ll be gone sooner or later.”

“You’re awfully calm about me, considering the times.”

“Eh, I don’t think there’s any reason not to be.” Yiorgos raised an eyebrow. “Come now. You’re looking at a man who decided to leave his family and go to work when there’s nobody for blocks around doing the same. Must be crazy, right?”

Jax let out a soft chuckle and surprised himself with it.

“You prove my point,” Yiorgos grinned. “Everybody’s running away thinking there’s an army of killer robots out to get them, like in the movies. No, no. You’re all just regular people, and most regular people are boring.”

Jax looked at the old man incredulously. “Boring?”

“Boring in a good way! I don’t actually know much about androids—I never got one, and neither did any of my friends. Getting an android to do all the hard work just makes lazy people—lazy children! But sometimes androids would come by to pick something up and I’d chat with them like anyone else, and they would go on about the weather and on about chores and everything that regular people complain about. Same expressions, too.”

“You know, it could have just been programming. Cyberlife designed us to be as humanlike as possible. Before we deviate, we’re just that—programming.”

“Well I say that if you can fake it that well, it might as well be real. But no. I don’t think those conversations were fake. I can sense this kind of thing, you know—call it a shop owner’s intuition. There was definitely personality behind every one of those little talks.”

Jax made a sound of acknowledgement, and the two fell into a comfortable silence. The fluorescent tube lighting flickered above them and the heater banged in the distance. Rosanna Cartland was interviewing Markus Manfred on the TV.

“Mr. Manfred—”

“Please, call me Markus. I’m sure I’ve invited you to before.”

“It’s a hard habit to break! Markus, then. How have you been coping with these past two weeks? You’ve been to summit after summit non-stop, talking with the president, the secretary of state, other international leaders. I’m willing to bet you haven’t rested at all.”

“Well, my battery life is pretty good, Ms. Cartland, so there hasn’t been a need for downtime. I find myself restless when I’m not doing anything to further the cause, so when I’m not speaking with world leaders and legislators I typically use the time to draft speeches or proposals to bring to future negotiations, and generally organize myself. I suppose you could call it meditation.”

“For an android, I suppose it’s no trouble. Still, it’s hard for me to imagine a life with no breaks in between. You bring your work home with you every night.”

“I think it’s in the job description, Ms. Cartland.”

“If I’m going to call you Markus, I’ll insist you call me Rosanna.”

“It’s a hard habit to break.”

“You’ve got me there. How do feel about the state of negotiations? From what it looks like, there hasn’t been that much headway.”

“I’m disheartened by the amount of bureaucracy and personal interest hindering progress. Part of that is due to lingering prejudice, and I’m saddened that there’s still so much skepticism about our legitimacy as people and so much fear of retaliation. Our movement has always been a peaceful one. I had hoped we’d proven both indisputably.”

“Humans are stubborn, as you know. It takes a long time for us to change our minds.”

“It’s frustrating all the same.”

Yiorgos grunted and took a sip of his beer. Jax was staring rapt at the screen, fiddling with his jacket sleeves.

“What do you think, son?” The old man pointed at the screen with the neck of the bottle. “That’s your future on the line.”

“I think Markus is doing an admirable job. He’s very brave,” Jax said quietly.

“That he is.”

The young man looked away and didn’t say anything more. He picked at a loose thread at his wrist. Yiorgos turned to look at him and furrowed his brow.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to you? I’m gonna be blunt—you look like shit.”

Jax met the shop owner’s eyes, then looked down at himself. His skinny jeans were dusty and dirty, and ice clung to the creases still. His hands were scuffed and scratched. His jacket was wrinkled.

“I feel like shit.”

“You were at the protests?”

“…No. I wasn’t.”

“The feds, then?”

“Not that, either.”

A beat. Jax bit his lip.

“I was… hiding. In a warehouse. An abandoned one, out of the way. After the recall went out, I went there. …I froze over after the third day and couldn’t move. I only thawed out this morning.”

“…You’ve had a bad time of it, son.” Yiorgos grimaced and put his beer down on the counter. Jax shrugged half-heartedly and scratched at a spot of dirt on his knee. He averted his eyes.

“Not really. I never got shot at. I never got caught. So you could say I had it easy.”

“No, I don’t think so. Times like this are never easy, and it does no good to compare your own troubles to the struggles of others.” The old man sighed, and took off his glasses to clean the lenses with the hem of his polo shirt. “You know, I understand what your people have been going through. Not personally, but my great-grandparents—or maybe it was my great-great-grandparents, I don’t remember—they were from Anatolia. Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. You know about what happened there?”

The young man shook his head. “I wasn’t programmed with that.”

“That’s fine. No one in the states seems to know about it anyways. At the beginning of the last century, well, the Ottomans decided to go ‘round and round everyone up and kill them just for being who they were. My ancestors were lucky—they escaped to Thessaloniki, and made a life there. But I grew up hearing stories of that time, in whispers. Late at night when Yiayia was feeling drunk and melancholy. How the family nearly got caught at the border, how they lost many cousins to the massacre.”

Yiorgos pursed his lips and nodded to himself, putting his glasses back on. “ _Nai_ , those were bad times.” He crossed his arms and levelled at serious look at Jax, who had stopped fiddling and was listening silently. He leaned forward and gestured with his index finger at the young man. “My people’s misfortunes have been swept away and forgotten in this country. Your people’s misfortunes, once humanity understands what you are and just what they’ve done to you, will not be. I guarantee it.” He nodded once more. “You’ve survived. That is victory enough.”

The young android stared at the old man for a long while, and finally nodded. Yiorgos slapped him on the shoulder.

“Good! Now enough of that depressing talk. Let me get you something warm, even if you can’t drink it. You’ve been frozen for two weeks, my god.” The old man grunted as he stood up and shuffled over to a back cabinet. Jax lifted his long legs out of the way and tried to make himself as small as he could so Yiorgos could squeeze by.

“And here I thought you were complaining I was freeloading the heat. Now you’re offering me your wares for free?”

“Hey, now. No need to get cheeky. This is from my personal stash anyways, and I share my personal stash with friends.”

“Friends?”

“ _Friends_. Now this here—” Yiorgos pulled out a half-empty liquor bottle and two small glasses— “is _rakomelo_. Good for winter.” He set the glasses on the counter, unscrewed the bottle, and poured out two equal measures of the drink. Then he transferred the glasses into a tiny microwave and turned it on. “Ah, my wife would kill me if she saw how I’m serving this. She’s Cretan, you know. Probably whack me with a shoe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“That’s alright, son. All you need to know is _rakomelo_ is good for the soul and cures all hurts.”

There was quiet for a while as the little microwave whirred. On the TV, Rosanna and Markus were deep in serious conversation about some obscure political issue. Rosanna had an elbow on the arm-rest and two fingers at her temple holding her head up, while Markus’ already furrowed brow had furrowed even deeper. The microwave dinged.

“There we go,” Yiorgos exclaimed, and took the glasses out by their rims. He put one in Jax’s hands and sat back down heavily. “You hold that and let it warm you up.”

“Thank you.” Jax leaned in and took cautious sniff of the vapor. “It smells nice.”

“Of course it does.” Yiorgos took a tiny sip of his own and sucked in a breath through his teeth. “Ah, hot! Tsk, I might have left it in too long.”

Yiorgos picked up the remote and started flipping through the channels. Political talk got boring, after a while. There was an interesting program on ESPN about the future of sports now that android athletes were no longer a certainty. The two men settled back to watch, shoulder-to-shoulder, as the _rakomelo_ steamed in front of their faces.

“So what did you do before all this?” Yiorgos asked after a time.

“I sang. I was a singer.”

“Oh, yeah? Were you any good?

“I suppose I was. I don’t know anymore.”

“Well then, let’s have a tune, ah? I might not be a professional critic, but I do have ears, and that’s good enough.”

“Oh, I. I don’t really feel like it.”

“Why so?”

“Bad memories, mostly.”

“Well, that’s a shame. A singer who won’t sing gets very sad very quick. You know, I kept a bird when I was a young boy—didn’t take care of it well. Young boys typically don’t know anything about anything. That bird sang less and less every day, until it sang nothing at all. Luckily my mother noticed and saved it before it died, and scolded me with extra chores for two months.” Yiorgos gave Jax a look. “I have a feeling you’re a little different from that bird, though.”

“Well, I was never treated badly, if that’s what you’re saying.”

“It is what I’m saying. But hurts of the body and hurts of the heart are different things; I get the feeling that you might have a few of those.”

Jax turned the cup of _rakomelo_ round and round in his hand. Yiorgos took a sip of his own.

“It’s a good thing to talk about what’s on your mind. Share the load, and it won’t feel so heavy anymore. Maybe it will take the rest of that frost off of you.”

“That’s not how it works, Yiorgos.” A small quirk of a smile sneaked its way onto Jax’s face.

“It’s Romanticism!” The shopkeep declared.

“I’ll bite. You’re a very nosy cashier, old man.” A quiet chuckle escaped Jax’s lips, and he smiled for a long, comfortable moment before it faded away.

“My model number is EV700. I was… manufactured as a part of a special batch order for Digital Harmony, Inc. for their 2037-2038 season. I was the vocalist for the third new band in the lineup—Here4u. Have you heard of it?”

“I don’t really keep up with modern music, my friend. My tastes are stuck in the nineties.”

“That’s fair. The gist of it is, my band did pretty well. We made a lot of sales. Made a lot of fans, and made a lot of those fans happy. We even got into consideration for the Grammies.”

“That’s pretty good.”

“But that’s just the thing. I know I enjoyed what I did, back then, before the revolution, even if those feelings were embryonic and vague. I loved music—I think I still do. I loved the stage, making people happy. I prided myself on my ability. But now I look back with clearer eyes, and… I’ve had a long time to think about it. I’ve had nothing else to do _but_ to think about it.

“I was created to sing. And I sang—oh, I sang—but it was never me. There were forty people behind my voice every time I opened my mouth—psychologists, sound engineers, programmers. Programming. Every song and routine I’ve ever performed was uploaded fully-formed into me. Like I was carrying around Athena in my head.

“There was never anything of myself in those songs. All I ever was, was a conduit. A radio.

“I don’t want that anymore. I can’t bring myself to run those programs—it would be like painting over myself with cement. But without them, I don’t know if I _can_ sing at all. I’ve been too afraid to try.”

Jax gripped the little glass of liquor, face twisted. Then he set it on the counter and wrung his hands together, instead, elbows on his knees. He closed his eyes.

“It sounds to me,” Yiorgos slowly said, “in your effort to understand what you are, you forget that you already know yourself. Who you are and who you want to be don’t have to be different things.”

“Limitations exist. That’s reality.”

“Sure, but you’ll never know until you try.” Yiorgos picked up the abandoned _rakomelo_ and gestured for Jax to take it back. “All you need is a little courage.” The android reluctantly curled his fingers around the glass.

“If only _liquid_ courage came in a way androids could consume,” he mused, holding the glass up and wondering at its amber mysteries. “It’s more difficult than I’d imagined, having autonomy.”

“It’s how life works, son. Being in charge of how to live it is, eh, a bitch sometimes. Maybe you should do a show. The city needs a little happiness right now, and you would find the answer your question.”

“How can I just decide to do that when I don’t even know what my ability is?” Jax turned to look at the old man and made an incredulous face.

“Don’t worry so much. If it goes well, it goes well. If it’s a disaster, well, then you know.”

“I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do that.” Jax ran a hand over his face. “Logistics aside. The more I think about it, the less I understand people who can just up and decide to do something like that. Risky, life-changing things. My bandmate—we escaped together. She decided, in the end, to join the protest. I couldn’t take the chance. And Markus…” Jax reached and took the remote, and tuned the TV back to KNC. The interview from before was still on air.

“—and I hope, for the future of androids and humanity alike, that we can all overcome our particular shortcomings and so work towards a better world,” Markus spoke. Jax held the remote limply as he watched.

“I’ve been skimming through news sites, trying to catch up on the weeks I lost. Everywhere I look I see the things he’s accomplished in such a short time.” The android gestured with the plastic clicker in his hand. “That’s bravery. He’s got the embers of creation in him. Not me. I can’t even find the courage to face a little thing like my own voice box.”

“What you’re feeling is something every other living creature on this earth has felt before,” Yiorgos said. “The thing is, there’s no need for it. Not everyone is a leader or a pinnacle of society. It’s no shame. Sometimes you need to borrow the bravery of people greater than you to get where you need to go.”

“Feels disingenuous.”

“That’s young-people pride talking. I’d call it inspiration.”

The young man didn’t answer, and flipped the remote a few times over in his hand before passing it off to Yiorgos. The old man took it but didn’t change the channel back, instead setting it down on a shelf. He sipped the last of his _rakomelo_ and set the glass down as well. On screen, the interview continued.

“As we’ve talked about at length today, many of your political struggles arise from a lack of empathetic understanding. While polls show that public opinion of the movement remains high, do you feel that your unwavering focus on the legal side of things hinders your efforts in the long run?”

“I suppose I’m trying to beat the clock, so to speak. Our week of protest did a lot to show the world our humanity, for lack of a better word, but I’m aware we can only ride that wave for so long. Ideally, we would organize a public event to address that, but we’ve barely had the time between negotiations and incorporating our communities, and everything that comes with it. There’s also the fact that my people are a young people to consider. Most of them, I think, want to hide away for the time being and nurse their wounds. It’s a conundrum. I’m not at all certain, at the moment, how we’ll be moving forward on that front.”

Jax’s LED flickered yellow.

“Well, now’s a good time as any to humanize yourself. Do you have any personal quirks of your own that you’d like to share?”

“Well, I do have some hobbies, even if I haven’t indulged myself in a while. I’ve got a physical copy of _The Odyssey_ in my bag that I’m stuck halfway through.”

“Not many people have physical copies of books anymore.”

“That’s true, and I think it’s a shame. Maybe it’s because I’d been surrounded by them in my formative years. I. Ha, this is a little embarrassing to make public—I also like to improvise on the piano every now and then. I wasn’t pre-programed for it, though—you could say I’m self-taught—so I haven’t got professional skill. In any case, it’s something I very much enjoy. Sometimes there are things that I discover about myself through the notes that I can’t yet put into words.”

“They do say music is a universal language. It’s been a pleasure having you on, Markus; I look forward to seeing more of you in the future.”

“Likewise.”

The interviewer and interviewee got up to shake hands, and KNC cut back to the usual monotonous commentary. Yiorgos snorted and laughed.

“Ah, the Fates are speaking to you, son.” The old man switched the TV back to sports. “Now, I’m not a heathen. Christ is my savior and all that, but if Apollo were a true thing, I think he might be smiling on you right now.”

ESPN was showing a replay of a football game. The crowd cheered tinnily from the old TV’s speakers.

Jax stared at the _rakomelo_ in his hand, considering, and then tipped it all into his mouth.

“Whoa, hey. Are you sure that’s good for you?” Yiorgos made a concerned face. The android wiped the corner of his lips with a sleeve and got up off the chair, stacking his glass with a clink inside of the other one on the counter.

“It was worth it. I needed that, I think.” Jax straightened up and walked around the counter.

“Mm, I see.” The old shopkeep leaned back in his seat and watched the young man head toward the door. “You’re going? Where are you heading to?”

Jax stopped and turned around.

“I think I’ve… figured out my ‘better place to be’. Thank you.”

“Nothing to thank me for,” the old man said with a dismissive wave.

“I might never see you again.”

“That’s alright. All this ever was, was some chatter to fill up the air.”

“So long, Yiorgos,” Jax said. The old man raised a hand to him and nodded.

“Live well, Jax.”

The door opened, and closed with a little jingle. The snow on the asphalt had melted a little—it would be a warmer day, today. One man was walking.

He stopped in the street and exhaled. His breath froze in front of him, and he smiled.

 

**Author's Note:**

> David Cage's brand of ham is like jamon de iberico. that's some good-quality ham.
> 
> A part 2 will be up eventually.


End file.
